MD1 Notebook: Terps Crafting New Look in Quest for Elusive
Title

University of Maryland coach John Tillman understands why so
much is expected of the Terrapins. Maryland, which enters the 2013
season ranked No. 2, has played in the NCAA men's championship game
for two straight years. The Terps, who have gone 37 seasons without
a national title, return many key contributors from a year ago.

Yet Tillman still feels he has so much to learn about this
year's edition.

"The big thing right now is creating the identity of the team we
want to be," said Tillman, as the Terps were preparing for
Thursday's preseason scrimmage at Princeton, five days before their
season opener on Feb. 12 against Mount St. Mary's.

"We didn't lose a lot of players from last year, but we've lost
some dominant personalities, some really important pieces. Our glue
guys are gone," added Tillman, referring to such influential
performers as Joe Cummings and Drew Snider, who led the attack and
midfield. "We always talk about playing like Terps. In what ways do
we excel? What's our personality? Do we need to button up, or do we
let our hair down?"

Maryland, which made an impressive, late-season run with a young
team that came up short against Loyola in the Division I title game
— and did that a year after a senior-dominated squad took
them to Memorial Day — certainly has plenty of familiar
forces.

The nine-man senior class features the game-changing Jesse
Bernhardt, arguably the best long-stick midfielder in the nation;
the steady-scoring Owen Blye on attack; and midfielder John Haus, a
complete player with maybe the highest lacrosse IQ on campus. The
junior class is led by battle-tested goalie Niko Amato and Brian
Cooper and Michael Ehrhardt, both tough interior defenders.

But these Terps are a pretty young bunch. Consider that, among
its 48 players, Maryland is carrying a combined 28 freshmen and
sophomores.

"My sophomore year, when we went to the final against Virginia,
we had 17 seniors, so I've seen it go the other way," said senior
midfielder and faceoff specialist Curtis Holmes.

"We're still a mature, experienced team, more so than last year,
I think. We can't take it for granted, because we're ranked No. 2
and we've been to the championship game two years in a row. It's
going to be interesting to see how we respond to having a bulls-eye
on our backs."

At least the Terps are nearing full, healthy strength, after at
least seven players — including Holmes, who had back surgery
last summer — missed all or part of the fall season.

Loyola Will be Road Hounds

The Loyola Greyhounds are the defending national champions and
the preseason No. 1 team in Division I. And yet, the Greyhounds
will get precious little time to showcase their product at home
this spring.

Loyola will play only five games at the Ridley Athletic Complex,
and will appear just twice there after hosting Bellarmine on March
2. Seven of Loyola's last nine, regular-season games will be on the
road. And the ECAC tournament — Loyola's last — will
take place at Hobart in early May.

It's the first Hobart trip on April 20 that has the Greyhounds
miffed. Although Toomey did not offer much comment on the matter,
the Greyhounds privately are convinced that switching the site for
the Hobart game — the Greyhounds were originally scheduled to
host the Statesmen — is a little payback from the ECAC.

Loyola University announced nearly six months ago that it was
joining the Patriot League, effective in the 2013-14 school
year.

"I'm disappointed with the way it was handled. I'd better not
say anything else," Toomey said. "But if there ever was a team that
was built to travel, it's this one. We will have a bunker
mentality."

March to Parity

With the new rules changes designed to speed up the pace of the
game — quicker restarts, no substitution horns and a
30-second shot clock following stall warnings — the sport's
most interesting stylistic change figures to center around the
midfield position.

More specifically, how many two-way midfielders will be born in
what has been such an age of specialization? How often will
offensive midfielders will be left on the field for extended
stretches to play defense?

An equally significant question centers around the decade-long
march toward parity in Division I — a march that was
punctuated by Loyola's first-ever national title in 2012. Remember,
other than Duke in 2010, the Greyhounds were the only school not
named Princeton, Syracuse, Virginia or Johns Hopkins to win an NCAA
title since North Carolina did it in 1991.

The preseason rankings reflect the parity trend. When was the
last time the season opened and Princeton (No. 15) and Syracuse
(12) were outside the top 10, while Virginia (9) was that close to
the bottom of it? Even Hopkins (No. 5) has missed the NCAA
tournament final four for four straight seasons — the
school's longest such drought since the tournament's inception in
1971.